Broadband Forum architects an ultra-fast future

September 4, 2015

Work that enables service providers in deploying ultra-fast broadband to homes and businesses around the world has been completed by the Broadband Forum during its quarterly meeting in Porto, Portugal.

The specification gives service providers the opportunity to architect a fibre-rich future offering ultrafast broadband speeds via copper enhancing G.fast technologies, as well as VDSL2, which means an improved broadband experience for users and new revenue opportunities for operators. This one innovation changes the landscape for business users, residential users and those offering services in multi-user/multi-dwelling facilities without touching the existing in-building wiring. Providers are now able to provide much higher value services without the cost and disruption to their customers. The Forum has enabled this through a radically new Fibre to the Distribution Point (FTTdp) architecture and a set of associated requirements.

Kevin Foster, Chairman of the Broadband Forum, said: “This represents a significant amount of work over many years including often challenging global industry consensus building. This will be the global standard for this innovative access architecture, and one on which many Service Providers will build their ultra-fast aspirations. Technical Report 301 will enable the global economies of scale necessary for successful deployment of ultrafast broadband.”

Through the use of G.fast and VDSL2 over short copper loops it has become possible to provide broadband users with data rates approaching those of fibre alone. This capability allows service providers to deliver very high-speed broadband services without the need to deploy fibre right into the customer premises. TR-301 provides the architectural basis and technical requirements with a new node type, the DPU, defined. A key aspect of the new node type is the ability for it to be reverse power fed from the customer premises via one or more copper pairs.

Apart from new service revenues for the service providers and higher broadband speeds, there are other benefits for operators and their customers. These include avoiding the need to install new infrastructure into and around the home, greater capability for customer self-install, which removes the need for a visit to the customer premises and also the reduction of time needed to fulfil service requests.

During the meeting, two members were presented with the Circle of Excellence Award, recognising their contributions to the work of the Forum. They were Martin Casey of Calix and Diane Patton of Cisco. Casey’s award was for his contribution to performance testing of VDSL2 systems and G.fast testing and Patton was recognised for her contribution and leadership on packet optical integration within the IP/MPLS and Core working group.